


Last Goodbye

by AlienWoman



Category: One Tree Hill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26889898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlienWoman/pseuds/AlienWoman
Summary: Amidst the basketball games and the sibling rivalries, the small town drama and on and off again romances, new girl Brooke Davis arrives in Tree Hill. Immediately catching the eye of next door neighbor Lucas Scott, she finds herself at odds with his ex-girlfriend Peyton and best friend Haley. But, as Brooke vows not to get too attached to anyone in Tree Hill, she connects with the girls who have sworn her off and finds herself settling into a community where she never thought she’d belong.
Relationships: Brooke Davis/Lucas Scott, Haley James Scott/Nathan Scott
Kudos: 6





	1. First Day Jitters

He knows that Haley’s arrived before he even hears the sharp wrapping on his door, her familiar loud sing-song voice shouting, “Lucas Eugene Scott, you’d better have your flat little ass out of that bed.”

Lucas groans and rolls over, digging under his mountain of pillows to find his phone. 

No new messages.

Typical, after he’d finally bared his soul to that beautiful curly haired blonde girl who lived for his sweet poetic words, she would just leave him on Read. 

He sits up and runs his fingers through his hair, feeling the dread of seeing her after an entire winter break apart. It had been two weeks since she’d told him that she’d needed more from him, that she was leaving for Hartford that night to spend time with her grandparents and her dad - who was finally not working for once - and he needed to figure out his own shit before he even thought about getting involved with her again.

“Lucas!” He hears from outside of his door.

He throws his covers off and stalks towards the door, swinging it open so hard that Haley nearly falls over.

She’s been his best friend since practically birth, and she always tried to act like she was his older sister, mother, aunt, whatever older female authoritarian over him. That’s how it was since she’d stood over him in the sandbox in pre-school to tell him that he should stop eating sand or else he’d get in trouble.

“What?”

“Oh, god, brush your teeth. And then come have breakfast with me and your mom.”

Lucas gives her one of his infamous smoldering looks, but she’s immune. He grabs a towel out of the linen closet and traipses to the bathroom.

“Teenage boys,” Haley sinks into a stool at the kitchen island.

“The worst,” his mom agrees, flashing him a grin.

Robert Davis wasn’t used to having a teenage daughter around, Brooke knew that for sure. From the curling iron in the bathroom to the high heels that appeared next to the door, the bras that appeared in the clean laundry pile on the couch that he would look at and practically gulp.

Maybe if he’d been around more, before she had turned sixteen and could take care of herself. After all, she’d been doing it since she could walk. She was signing the rent checks and managing the bank account when kids her age were still learning how to write in cursive. Rob had left them in California when she was just a baby and he probably thought he could lay all of the responsibility of his kid on her mother forever. Brooke probably could’ve lived like that, too, even if it meant tucking her mom into bed after too much to drink after a night out or walking home when her mother forgot to pick her up from school. But, her mom had ruined it all and now she was stuck, here, in Tree Hill.

“Are you almost done in there?” Rob asks from the other side of f the bathroom door. The whole house was too tiny for the two of them - it was definitely a place made for a bachelor with one bedroom off of the living room and just a small breakfast nook that he’d squished a twin bed and a desk into. 

Brooke unplugs her curling iron and opens the door in exasperation. “Can I just get ready for school in peace?”

“I have to be at work in twenty minutes, Brooke,” her dad says. “There are other people that live here.”

She opens her mouth to unleash on him, but he quickly slams the door back in her face. She had so much to say to the man who had abandoned them all that time ago yet he was too afraid to ever face it. 

Back in her makeshift bedroom, she examines her outfit for the first day of day of school - black skinny jeans, a pale pink scoop neck shirt with ruffled sleeves, and little black booties. Her hair is in long chocolate brown waves, only a bit of mascara and lipgloss dabbed onto her lips. She didn’t know the lay of the land, if the kids at this school subscribed to the idea of athleisure as everyday wear so she was playing it safe. The clothes that were still neatly folded in her ratty luggage were less tame; sheer stockings and pleather skirts, off the shoulder sweaters and high waisted shorts. 

Brooke grabs a mug from the kitchen and pours herself some of the coffee that she’s made that morning. It was Folgers, which she definitely didn’t approve of, but it was better than nothing. As she sips, Rob appears back in the kitchen fully dressed in slacks and a collared shirt.

“So, you’ll be catching a ride with Karen’s kid. They live next door,” he says.  
She pours him a mug of coffee, as if out of habit for what she used to do for her mom. He accepts it without a word. 

“So, I guess that’s it, then,” Brooke tests him. No ‘good luck on your first day, dear daughter’.

She stares at him hard, but he doesn’t even relent. She guesses that’s where she gets it from.

“I won’t be home until late,” Rob finally tells her, dumping his mug in the sink.

As he leaves, she takes a deep breath and grabs her book bag.

_Tree Hill High, here I come._


	2. The Girl Next Door

Haley fiddles with the radio, tapping her sneakers on the dashboard of Lucas’s car. He turns to her and gives her a look, but she only shrugs.

“Can we just go already? We’ve been waiting forever,” Haley groans. Her best friend might not like school, but she loved having a place that was all her own, away from her overcrowded house. There, someone was always digging around in her room, touching her things, and snitching on her for every little thing. She was the oldest of five: her closest in age sister, Quinn, was twelve years old so she still went to the middle school. The twins, Margo and Lena, were in fifth grade, and Howie was the youngest, the only boy, and he’d just turned 6. He was the worst of the bunch, so spoiled and doted on by her dad.

“My mom said I had to give the new girl a ride to school,” he tells her. “And, it's been five minutes, drama queen.”

“We’re going to be late for school,” Haley complains, but her words are completely lost on him when they see the door open to the small vinyl sided home next to Lucas and Karen’s, and a beautiful long legged brunette steps out. Beside her, Lucas’s eyes move from the girl’s long hair to her lips, to the rest of her body. She scoffs and rolls her eyes but her friend doesn’t even notice.

The girl taps on the car window and Lucas fumbles to open it. 

“Lucas?” She asks.

“Uh, oh, yeah,” he says. “I’m Lucas.”

The girl nods and moves to open the door to the backseat, sliding into the leather seats. “Just making sure that you’re not a serial killer or something.”

“Lucas is a regular Michael Peterson over here,” Haley jokes. Lucas turns to her, eyebrows raised. He was used to her always obscure references.

“That guy who killed his wife in Forest Hills,” Haley says.

“The Staircase,” the girl in the back interjects. “He tried to blame his wife’s death on an owl attack.”

Haley nods approvingly to her. “I’m Haley, by the way.”

“Brooke,” the girl says as Lucas pulls out of the driveway. 

She settles back in the seat and remains quiet for the rest of the ride, but Haley can’t help but notice how Lucas’s eyes keep flicker to her in the rear view mirror.

Haley unlocks her phone and finds her and Peyton’s text thread, mainly filled with memes from X-Files - a show they’d discovered they were both still obsessed with and they’d bonded over when Peyton had first begun to date Lucas - and Peyton’s bemoanings on her and Lucas’s on and off again relationship.

 _You sure about this whole break up thing with Lucas?_ Haley types to her. _Because, it looks like he’s moving on quickly._

. . .

Peyton stares at the text Haley’s just sent, unable to quite put her finger on what she was feeling. Was it jealousy? Who was this girl that Lucas suddenly had eyes for when he had just professed his love to her the previous night.

“Are you ready?” The barista asks her, impatiently, snapping Peyton back to the noisy coffee shop. She much preferred the coffee at Karen’s Cafe but she felt like she was encroaching on her ex’s territory when she stopped by; the Rivercourt, Karen’s, the library during the free period that they both had and used to spend together, those all belonged to him. The record store, the park near the center of town where she sometimes went to sketch, those were hers. Tree Hill High gym, Nathan’s parent’s lake house where he was always throwing parties, those were neutral spaces where they had to accept that this town was just too small to avoid each other forever.

“Oh, yeah, can I get a large skim latte?” She orders. As she moves over to wait for her drink, she feels a sharp nudge into her side.

“Hey, you okay?” Jake asks. 

Peyton sighs and slips her phone into the pocket of her leather jacket. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

But, she knows that he won’t accept that as an answer. Peyton and Jake had been best friends since practically birth, living side by side through their most awkward years. Like, at the beginning of middle school when Peyton had decided that she wanted to rock a pixie cut that her beautiful blonde curls just wouldn’t obey and Rachel Gatina had gotten all the girls to call her a poodle until it finally began to grow out again. Jake had ruffled her hair and right in front of everyone told her how pretty she looked. Or when Peyton’s dad didn’t quite know how to deal with his growing daughter and she was much too embarrassed to ask him to buy her a bra. Jake had gallantly lead her into the Victoria’s Secret at the mall where he stood as her face burned in embarrassment while she picked out bras. That was Jake, always so noble and unembarrassed about everything. He was the best person to have in your corner.

“Haley just texted me and told me that there’s this new girl that lives next door to Lucas and they gave her a ride to school this morning,” Peyton sighs. A barista calls out their names and they both pick up their cups of coffee, moving towards the door to hop in her Comet. 

“And…?” Jake asks, staring at her over the glossy black of her prized car. 

“She said that he seems interested in this girl,” Peyton shrugs as though she doesn’t care, but they both know she does.

She unlocks the doors and they both climb in. As she starts up the car, Fall Out Boy blares over the speakers, her usual morning amp up music. But, Jake leans over to turn the music down as they pull onto the road to head to school.

“I think it's Haley being dramatic again,” Jake says, running his fingers through his messy brown waves. 

True, Lucas’s best friend had a flair for the dramatic; Peyton was always telling her that she should be trying out for the school play instead of hiding in the stacks of books in the library. But, Haley was also usually on Team Luke/Peyton when it came down to it.

“Besides,” Jake continues. “Didn’t you say that you guys were, like, done done this time. That’s what you said to me before you left for your grandparents’.”

“I mean, yeah...I think I meant it at that moment,” Peyton tells him.

The trouble with Lucas, though, was that he always managed to reel her back in. Through the fights were these moments of great clarity with him, where he’d share his writing with her and tell her about the fights with his dad, when his dad could actually stand to talk to him. He’d run his fingers through her curls and tell her that she was beautiful and there were no other girls like her.

And, what he’d written her the night before...usually she wouldn’t take a text as a sign to get back with him but his words were always so poetic and meaningful. And, she thought maybe she’d talk to him when she saw him at school. Maybe these two crazy kids could work it out after all.

But, not if he had eyes for someone else.

“Well, if you actually want to get back together with him...again,” Jake can’t help but add, always snarking on her for her tumultuous relationship. “I doubt that some girl is going to get in the way. And, if she tries, she’ll quickly know there’s only one Peyton Sawyer in this world and she’s the best girl there is.”

Peyton rolls her eyes, but a small smile plays on her lips.

Yeah, who did this girl think she was, anyway? Her and Lucas were meant to be.


End file.
